There’s a moment in French Exit where Frances (Michelle Pfeiffer), the film’s widowed lead, remarks to her best friend, “My life might be riddled by clichés, but you know what a cliché is? It’s a story that is so fine and thrilling that it has grown old in its hopeful retelling.” Whether that line was intentionally meta or not, it doesn’t stop screenwriter Patrick deWitt’s adaptation of his novel of the same name from being just as cliché-ridden, and tiresome to boot.###The desperate financial straits of the fortune’property y is a well-trodden trope on the page and the screen, from Jane Austen’s Persuasion to Trading Places. Rich individual become poor and the audience is expected to empathise as they adapt. French Exit leans into a more Schitt’s Creek by way of The Royal Tenenbaums approach, but never quite delivers the same originality or off-beat humour.###This is 100 per cent the Pfeiffer reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue , but it’s a struggle to care with regards to’concerning’with respect to Frances’ one per cent problems.###Frances is a glamorous socialite who merely’barely took an interest in her son after her husband’s death. Several years later, they possess’own’nurse spent all of the inheritance, but there are abundant’ample’plentiful individual around willing to help in Frances’ time of need, despite her acerbic manner and questionable judgement following her husband’s death. After Frances has quietly auctioned off her assets in/with regard to’concerning’regarding cash, her best friend offers up her Parisian apartment so Frances can escape the impending gossip of Manhattan society. Eintensely’extremely’extraordinarily’enormously’awfullything is smooth sailing as she and her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) set sail in/with regard to’concerning’regarding France on a cruise liner, with hundreds of thousands of euros and a pet black cat.###Hedges displays a sedate reserve that works well in/with regard to’concerning’regarding his disaffected young man with mummy issues, but his paper-thin romantic plot, involving Imogen Poots as his frustrated fiancée Susan, is in/with regard to’concerning’regarding acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure table. Pfeiffer, meanwhile, exudes the nonchalance of privilege to great effect. She delivers Frances’ dialogue with leisurely indifference and her withering looks are masterful to behold. This is 100 per cent the Pfeiffer reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue , but it’s a struggle to care with regards to’concerning’with respect to Frances’ one per cent problems, and her perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance falls flat when moments of eccentricity are called in/with regard to’concerning’regarding .###This is more to do with drab direction on Azazel Jacobs’ part. The meandering pace, dull lighting and framing make in/with regard to’concerning’regarding a lacklustre world in/with regard to’concerning’regarding Frances to inhabit, the merely’barely glint coming from Nick deWitt’s piano score. Maybe the dreariness was deliberate, to reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue the glamour has long faded from her life, but it also makes in/with regard to’concerning’regarding a visually less interesting, fatiguing story and dampens much of the script’s attempts at surrealism and wit. One that half-heartedly delivers characters that are not approximately as funny, intriguing or quirky as deWitt claim’insist’maintain’hold’argue’consider’contemplate’speculate s they are, including Danielle McDonald’s underdeveloped in/with regard to’concerning’regarding tune-teller and Valerie Mahaffey’s Madame Reynard, a somewhat pathetic Frances fangirl. By the film’s end, it has diverged from the explicit resolution of deWitt’s novel to something more amenormous’vast’massive’tremendous uous. A flat note to end on in a film filled with clichés with regards to’concerning’with respect to fortune’property , class and family, unimaginatively retold.